Integrate Mailing List Subscription with webpage

snowweb

snowweb

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Antipolo City, Rizal, Philippines (a British Natio
Hi, I have a customer who would like to offer the option on their website, to subscribe to their mailing list, in order to be kept abreast of developments.

I was wondering if it is possible to integrate the subscription process for the existing DA mailing list feature into a webpage, so that the look and feel of the site is maintained and other content can also be offered on the same page?

Does anyone have an example of how this can be done?

Kind regards

Peter
 
Majordomo was originally designed so when you'd create a mailing list you'd send out a customized list-owner-info file to the list-owner responsible for the list. The list-owner-info file would include instructions on how to join a list by sending an email.

Since Majordomo was written before the Web was even invented, it didn't include a way to use the Web to create a mailing list.

The best way to join a Majordomo list is still to send an email, but unfortunately, the DirectAdmin implementation of Majordomo doesn't send a customized copy of the list-owner-info file.

So I've put a generic one online; you can find it here.

The best way to implement a mailing list signup page in Majordomo is to create a php or perl script to create that email, and to populate it through a custom form.

If you do that be sure to set up your list to use double-opt-in; i.e., to send one email requiring a response, before adding an email address to a list.

Jeff
 
Hello,

In addition to Jeff's comments, you could also do it another way by creating an API to interface with DA via the webpage.

This is the particular API command info for mailing lists (at the very bottom).
Then create a php file with the php-communication-class for the DA apis with the above method to create a web form for automatic adding of emails into the list through a webpage.

I don't have any specific examples of that exact command handy, but this is the usual starting place for API coding:
www.directadmin.com/api.html

Note that it would require the DA user/password to be stored inside a php script (or config) in plaintext.

John
 
I actually thought of that, John. I rejected it for two reasons:

1) It would make the webpage DirectAdmin specific. Good for you, even good for us, but not necessarily best for the client.

2) Since it would require the DA password be stored in the client's area (I think) it wouldn't be as secure as my solution.

Could it be stored elsewhere? Which user would have to read it?

I like my solution because it appears to me to be more secure.

Jeff
 
One more thing ... it's amazing what you can do with Majordomo through commands sent through email; we used to manage a commercial list service that didn't even require anyone have a site, or even web access (way back in the old days ;)).

Reading our generic list-owner-info file is a great place to start learning about Majordomo.

Jeff
 
Latest release 1.94.5 / 19 January 2000; 3216 days ago
 
Mailman might do for you

snowweb said:
Hi, I have a customer who would like to offer the option on their website, to subscribe to their mailing list, in order to be kept abreast of developments.
Click to expand...

Mailman, which can be installed on a DA server and work for all your customers uses web pages for subscriptions/unsubscribes/posts. There is
a thread in this forum that details the installation and setup.
http://directadmin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25596&highlight=mailman

That's the good news....but you would have to check the mailman site for the configuration parameters for an announce-only mailing list, if that's what your client needs. Check http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/index.html
 
scsi said:
Latest release 1.94.5 / 19 January 2000; 3216 days ago
Click to expand...
Ah, the venerable "oldie but goodie". :D

Having problems with a release from January 2000? If so better not take my advice; my release date is in the 1940s.

Jeff
 
tlchost said:
Mailman, which can be installed on a DA server and work for all your customers uses web pages for subscriptions/unsubscribes/posts.
Click to expand...

Thom,

I believe the original poster is looking for a way to integrate subscriptions into his own webpage; not to redirect users to a mailman webpage.

Can Mailman do that?

Jeff
 
Sorry to be quiet for so long guys. Been so busy this week, I never managed to get back onto this until today!

Anyway, I've read all of your ideas. I appreciate them all and I've checked them all out today.

It looks like (as old and clumsy as it is) Majordomo might do the trick. I think I might go with Jeff's way of integrating it too, since it's pretty simple, will allow me to simply put a text field in the website template to accept the subscribers address and no need to try to figure out the API stuff.

One question though, to restrict the list so that only the owner can post, would I use the following command?

Code: 
restrict_post = [email protected]

Thanks for all your help.

Regards, peter
 
No, it's:
Code: 
restrict_post = filename
where filename is a file containing:
Code: 
[email protected]

The file should be at:
Code: 
/etc/virtual/example.com/majordomo/lists/filename
owned by user majordomo and (at least on my CentOS servers) group daemon, and should be chmod 664.

And of course example.com and filename should be replaced with the correct information for your server.

Jeff
 
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